Conventional wireless communication standards have been configured for low (hundreds of kbps), medium (several Mbps), high (tens of Mbps), and very high (hundreds of Mbps) data rate transmissions, as the objective was to transmit medium and large data quantities in short periods.
The emergence of what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT) on the consumer electronics market has triggered the demand for wireless approaches including low power, low throughput, low power consumption, and long range, also known as LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network). The requirements for these network approaches include:                Low throughput: most IoT devices require data rates of only a few hundred bps up to a few tens of kbps.        Low power consumption: similar to the conventional close-range approaches using low power, for example, ZigBee.        Low cost: prices for the transceiver in the range of 3 to 2 U.S. dollars        Long range: no hops, i.e., no intermediate node between the end node and the gateway to the Internet, and the option of deploying as a wide area network (WAN).        
None of the aforementioned conventional wireless communication standards is able to meet these four requirements simultaneously. Cellular radio approaches such as GPRS cover a wide range and offer low throughput, but are neither economical nor low-power. Technologies based on IEEE 80215.4 such as ZigBee, 6LowPAN, or Thread are not always able to provide zero hops up to the gateway. Technologies based on IEEE 802.11x meet none of these requirements.
In order to bridge this technology gap, new versions of mature, wireless technologies such as ultra-narrow band/spread-spectrum were developed. Examples of these technologies include LoRa or SigFox for spread-spectrum or ultra-narrow band. Both technologies are capable of providing a very long range and are therefore suitable for deployment as wide area networks having a cellular radio topology. In addition, both technologies are capable of providing a long range while using low transmission power and employing economical transceiver architectures.